


Open an Old Wound

by SheWhoNox



Category: Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-12
Updated: 2016-03-11
Packaged: 2018-05-26 05:21:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6225580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SheWhoNox/pseuds/SheWhoNox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ellana knew his face. She had hunted him for years. Before the Inquisition, before the rift, even before the mage rebellion, they had crossed paths and she had sworn to hunt him down. Now she sits across from him at the war council, trying to forgive a wrong almost a decade old.</p>
<p>A short series uncovering the bloody history between Ellana and Cullen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Open an Old Wound

Summer seemed to stretch on for an eternity, the clouds scattered in fear of the blazing sun. Rain had not fallen for two weeks and the river that ran against our camp was growing weak. I watched father run a thumb across his lip in worry. Deshanna stood beside him, mirroring his stance. A Keeper and his First, I thought as I watched them from the aravel. Deshanna was a near clone of our father, the same long nose and red hair shot through with gold. She was his eldest and had taken up the mantle of First with pride.    
  
"You are supposed to be studying, not eavesdropping."    
  
Arris pinched my ear and drew me back inside, away from the sun and the worry.    
  
"I wasn't eavesdropping!" I said, rubbing one reddening ear.    
  
He made a noise in the back of his throat, rearranging the leaves I had scattered.    
  
"They weren't even talking," I mumbled.   
  
"And how would you know that if you weren't listening for something?" Arris fixed me with a knowing stare, one he fixed me with often.  "Come, da'len, let us be done with this and move on."    
  
"Why do I have to know our bloodline? Aren't we all Dalish?"    
  
"Father is proud of his lineage and he wants us to remember those who came before us. Now," he prompted, pointing to a deep green sylvanwood leaf at his feet.    
  
"Keeper Isoman. He had three sons, Luthien, Surias and Misal. They have two sons each," and so the family tree branched on, mage after mage, Keeper sireing Keeper.    
  
"Father, Keeper Gandriel. He has seven children of three different women. Deshanna, his First; Arris, his second; Felian, First of clan Soram; Joven, Second of clan Soram. Keeper Kuna and her First, Soris, both of clan Doretha. And me, Ellana."    
  
"And what have you learned from this?"    
  
I looked down at the tree before me, leaves of sylvanwood arranged in curling lines, all deep green save for the smallest of the last branch. My leaf was yellow, garish against the emeralds of the rest of my family.    
  
What had I learned? I was the only child in seven generations to not have magic. I defied a legacy decades in the making.    
  
"That clan Lavellan likes to procreate?"     
  
I dodged away as Arris tried to pinch my ear again, but he feinted left then caught my right ear between his fingers. He was smiling at my glib reply and fought to swallow his grin. His seriousness had always faltered around me.   
  
"What did you really learn?"    
  
I squirmed away and crawled out of the aravel, skipping away from his reaching hands.   
  
"That father's blood is strong with magic and has been for generations," I recited, having learned that at a very young age. "Father is proud of his heritage."    
  
"You should be proud as well." Arris fell into step beside me, ruffling my short hair with a grin, but I noticed how it didn't reach his eyes.    
  
"Proud that I'm the first in seven generations to not have magic?” I asked. I may have been young, but I wasn't dim-witted. I knew what lesson Keeper Gandriel was trying to teach me.  

Arris didn't respond and instead frowned at the horizon.

“Ellana!”

Across the glen, seated beside the carcass of a great bear, Cyran beckoned. He was carefully skinning the beast, the fur already pooling at his feet. Cyran was our chief hunter and a master with a bow. Andruil’s mark crossed his cheeks and chin, rightly earned for none could hunt as he could. He was lean as most elves were, but broad across the shoulders with arms banded in muscle. Straw coloured hair hung about his shoulders, free of its usual ties.

I looked up at Arris and with a small smile he pushed me towards the hunter.

Cyran’s face was stern, as it often was, but he allowed a half-grin to show at my approach.

“I’ve got something for you.” He stabbed his skinning blade into the grass, the grip quivering with the impact, and procured a leather pouch from the bag at his feet, heedless of the drying blood that coated his hands.

“Think of it as a gift for your blood-writing. You’re nearly ready.”

Gandriel said that I would be marked before summer was done and I was eager. I would finally be one of clan Lavellan, a fully fledged member. I would be able to find a mate, I could visit other clans if I wished. Being marked held more freedom than being bare-faced and too young in the eyes of my people.

I upended the pouch and two thin blades tumbled to the grass. They were beautiful, with grips of polished white bone and blades of shimmering steel. Small, they were no longer than my forearm, but they nearly sang when they cut through the air.

“Cyran,” I whispered, fingers already comfortable around the narrow grips.

“You’ll outgrow them soon enough, but treat them well and you’ll be unstoppable once you're grown.”

“I can't accept them!” I held them out to him, tried to get him to take them back, but he was already back to the bear, now cutting out plump organs and slabs of muscle.

“Why can't you?” 

“Because I won't need them. Father says there’s still time for magic-” A learned response, spat back verbatim from every time I’d heard it.

Cyran grunted, withdrawing his blade from the belly of the bear to point it squarely at my chest.  

“You could deliver the hide of Fen’Harel himself and you're father would still never admit to siring a hunter. A damn fine hunter at that.”

I swallowed, all other protests dying on my tongue. While Gandriel had spent his time trying to foster magic in me, Cyran had seen something else. As a child, I had followed him on hunts, learning how to stalk a hare or ram through the forest. It had started as a hobby, something to pass the time until my magic appeared, but as the years went on I became more and more comfortable with a blade, more at ease in the boughs of the forest that surrounded us than in an aravel, debating the best rune for a situation. Cyran guided me through my first kill, my first skinning. He had taught me how to breathe when hunting, how to outlast any beast Ghilan’nain had made.

In all those years he had never given more than a quick grunt of approval or a ruffle of my hair. Now, with two fresh blades in my hands, he called me a damn fine hunter.

“I - ah, thank you,” I managed, fingers still wrapped around the hilts.

Cyran reached up and pulled me close. His hands were still warm from the bloody beast as he threaded his fingers through my hair and pressed a quick kiss to my brow.

“Go on,” he said, nodding back to where Deshanna and father were standing. “Can't keep our Keeper waiting.”

With one last grateful smile, I turned to my father and sister, faltering when I saw how they both sneered.

“What are those?” Deshanna asked, reaching for the blades. I stepped back, ducking when she snatched for them again. She hadn't been able to catch me for years. 

“They’re a gift.”

“You have no use for them,” father snapped, his face twisting into something fierce. As quickly as it had appeared, the snarl was gone and his face was serene once more. “Come, child,” he said, “there is still hope yet.” He took my face in his hands, his thumbs running across each cheek. “Your magic may yet blossom.”

He’d been trying to force my magic for years. It had been small things at first; he would startle me in the dead of night or while I gathered herbs. But years had passed without a sign of magic and he grew more desperate. He’d held me underwater until my lungs had screamed and the world had gone dim. “A mage would have saved themselves,” he’d said. Then he had hurled fire at me. Then he’d encased my legs in ice. I’d nearly lost a toe to the cold and all I had to show for his other attempts were two twisted scars in each palm from where I'd been fool enough to think I could have caught a ball of flame.

Father was desperate for another mage. He wanted to add to his legacy, never mind that I would have shipped off to another clan without a backwards glance, never mind that we hadn't seen or heard from Felian and Joven in years. Joven and I had the same mother, he was more my brother than anyone left in clan Lavellan, yet I hadn't seen him in three years.

“Go, child,” he said and he pressed a kiss to my brow. It was cold where Cyran’s had been warm. He dismissed me with a quick wave of his hand.

I went to the aravel I shared with two others of the clan, fetching a length of canvas and a few ends of leather to try and fashion sheaths for my new daggers.

“You shouldn't have taken them.”

Deshanna sank to the ground beside me, her staff on the ground between us.

“Father’s upset.”

“Then let him be upset. ‘Shanna, I’m a year away from getting my vallaslin, if I was going to have magic, I would have it by now.” I grabbed her staff and waved it around.  “See?” I asked when nothing happened. “I’ve made peace with it, let him as well.” Only peace wasn't as peaceful as I’d hoped. The expectation had wormed into my heart and turned to a hard rock of resentment as they years wore on. Fear of disappointing him had turned to anger at his tests, hope had turned to despair and then to bitter resignation.

I dropped the leathers with a sigh. “I have to start finding my own way. If father won't guide me, Cyran will.”

Deshanna studied my face and I wondered what she saw. I didn't have father’s long nose or his copper hair. Deshanna had those and the wide, warm eyes of her mother.

“Here.” She took the leathers from around my feet and passed her fingers over them. Magic glowed in the palm of her hands as the leather stitched itself together and wove into itself. Where scraps of hide had been seconds ago, two beautiful sheaths now sat, complete with a harness to strap them to my back.

It was easy to look at Deshanna and only see our father in her. It was easy to forget that she was my sister too. I squeezed her hand, thankful for the reminder that my sister was on my side after all.

“I wasn't here,” she whispered, winking at me before flitting off to work.

Wards protected the camp from outsiders, some sending shemlen away in the other direction, others making it impossible to mark our location on a map. But the ancient magic grew weak after a time, so Deshanna and Arris dug up the old runes and placed new ones imbued with fresher mana. They worked together seamlessly, Arris digging up the runes while Deshanna enchanted them. They were spells I’d never heard of, spoken in a language almost forgotten by our clan, but even I could feel the power in the air when they were cast. Arris hadn't learned them yet, but I could see him watching our sister from the corner of his eye.

The last rune they dug up was shattered, slivers of granite slipping past Arris’s fingers. He pocketed the pieces and beckoned me.

“I have to trade with the shemlen. Want to come along?”

I slung my new daggers across my back and beamed up at him. “Of course.”

I knew clan Lavellan traded with humans and from the moment I'd been old enough to go along with the traders, I had. I remembered being strapped to my father’s back, watching over his shoulder as we crested a great hill and Kirkwall stood before us. It had been sprawling and wonderful to see as a child and as Arris and I came to stand at the top of the same hill, I felt the same rush.

Kirkwall was everything my clan was not. There were walls and fortresses, winding stone roads and doors that kept the outside out. The docks were always busy with grand ships larger than any aravel I’d seen. I always begged Arris to take me to the docks, but he'd always said they were too dangerous. I looked up to him, mouth half opened to ask yet again.

“Not this time, da’len.” 

He had already swapped his usual staff of rich redwood and emerald inlay for a rough hewn one of ironwood and he leaned on it as if it were a walking stick. Kirkwall had no love for mages.

“Pull up your hood,” he instructed as we descended into the outskirts of the city. I tucked my ears inside my hood, shifting my new harness to sit more comfortably across my back.

The small market at the bottom of the hill was already busy, people armed with fans and wide hats to shield themselves from the heat. The chatter, which was usually loud and frantic was lazy and slow today. Arris kept his head down and headed to a stall that sold magic supplies. I trailed behind him, more keen to see the people and the wares than he was. I had to savour every second because Arris did not waste his time in Kirkwall.

I leaned over a table displaying all sorts of food I had never seen before and inhaled. It smelled nothing like the muddy stews and rough bread I usually ate. There were pots boiling away, filled with bright red soup, and a tray beside them with small, yellow crackers.

“Have a taste, hon,” said the owner, pouring a measure of soup into a cup and passing it over. I held it under my nose and sniffed again. The spices burned the back of my throat, unfamiliar yet enthralling.

“Thank you.” I nodded and turned away. Arris was talking to a hunched man whose beard was long enough to tuck into his trousers yet had no hair on the top of his head.

“I would pick the reaverose myself, but these old bones don't bend like they used to.” He gave a dry, hacking laugh that rattled his ribcage.

Arris smiled. “I’m happy to pick them for you. You've always been a friend.”

“Most people don't like the Dalish,” said the man, jabbing a finger into his ear and wiggling it about. “But I’ve never met one I didn't like. You’re just people.”

My brother gave another quick smile, but his eyes were focused elsewhere. A troop of Templars were approaching from the city, their boots clinking on the cobblestones. I drew closer to Arris, eyeing his staff. Templars were never good. His eyes flicked across to mine and he shook his head. The message was clear; we couldn't run yet.

“Do you have runestones, Serrick?” Arris asked, stepping closer.

“Yes, yes. How many did you need?” He began poking through his sack.

“Just the one.” The Templars were closer now, searching each table they passed. “Quickly, now.”

The woman who sold the spell books and runes was hastily gathering her things, shoving as much as she could manage into her skirts, but one of the men saw her and snatched her wrist.

“Here, ser! She’s selling magic books!”

The woman squirmed, trying to pull herself free, but the man held tight. Silence had fallen across the market, all eyes on the Captain as he approached.

He was a tall man, broad across the shoulders with short yellow hair. He scowled as he searched her cart.

“Are you contracted through the Circle?” he asked.

“Yes! Yes, I am.”

He looked at her with one brow arched. “I doubt that. Do you have the contract to prove it?”

She swallowed. “Yes, it’s back at my shop, I swear. Just let me go get it. It’s signed by the Grand Enchanter!”

The Captain laughed without humour. “You swear? I am to trust  _ your _ word that you aren't a criminal?” He waved a hand and turned away from her. The second he faced the rest of the market,  everyone leapt into action, continuing on as if they hadn't been watching. “Take her to the dungeon. The Knight-Commander will deal with her.”

Serrick, who was slow and had not torn his eyes from the weeping woman being shoved away, had the runestone in his slack hand.

“Thank you,” muttered Arris, grabbing it and shoving the herbs in his hand. He spun away and kept his head down, walking back towards the city.

“Where are you going?” I hissed.

“We can't go back the way we came, it’ll draw too much attention. We’ll go to the city and double back once they’re gone.” He stuffed the runestone deep into his pocket and grabbed my arm, hurrying away from the Templars.

“Where are you going so quickly?”

My head was tucked down, but I saw metal greaves glinting against the stone.

“Home, ser. My daughter is ill.” Arris’s hand squeezed my arm steadily.

“Let me see your face.”

I looked up to see Arris pulling back his hood. The Templar’s face darkened.  

“Dalish, eh? I never did think the city should’ve let you lot in.” He turned to me, “Let's see your daughter.”

Arris nodded once to me and I drew back my hood. The Templar narrowed his eyes as he studied us. He was searching for some kind of similarity between us and found none. Arris had dark hair and dark eyes and a long chin that jutted out; I had none of those.

The Templar, unable to prove Arris and I were related, instead focused on the staff my brother held.

“What’s this?”

“A walking stick, ser.” The arm around my arm tightened enough to bruise.

“You seemed to hurry away just find before,” said the Templar, snatching it from his hand.

The staff crackled and the Templar barely had time to shout, “Mage!” before Arris drew lightning into his palms. It shot through the air between us and made the Templar falter. Arris grabbed the staff and hurled a whip of flame at an incoming Templar. It deflected off his shield and dissipated with a sizzle. The Templar raised a hand toward Arris.

My brother, who had once fought a pack of bears with nothing but his staff, Arris Lavellan, who could conjure flames from thin air, crumpled to the ground as if struck.

“Arris!” I screamed. He was struggling to pull himself up from the ground as the Templars descended upon us.

I threw the hot soup in the face of one man, drawing a blade with my free hand. While Arris fought to get back on his feet, I drew my other blade and threw myself at the Templar closest to him.

The Captain was a head taller than I, but his back was turned. I drew back, blade poised to stab at a weak spot just below his ribs.

“Knife-ear!”

A mailed hand clamped down on my wrist and hoisted me into the air. My shoulder jolted and pulled away from its joint. I screamed and kicked, but the fist held fast.

The Templars were surrounding Arris now, holding him down with boots and the strange magic they had. I could feel it in the air as surely as I had felt Arris’s magic before. It crackled and popped like static. It was suffocating Arris. He was prone on the ground, blood pouring from his temple. The Captain approached him with his sword drawn.

I stabbed the arm that held me, sliding my thin blade into a crease in his elbow. With a grunt, I pushed it until the tip stabbed through the other side. The Templar screamed, his whole arm limp and bloody. I scrabbled across the stones towards the circle of men, right arm swinging uselessly behind me.

I aimed for the Captain again, for a joint in his armour just behind his knees. If I could stop him for just a second --

His fist swung around and sent me flying backwards, arching over the Templar I had stabbed and back into the cobblestones.

“Deal with her,” he ordered. There was a snap and I prayed it was the staff breaking.

“Ellana, run!”

Two Templars started after me. I pushed up off the ground as best I could with one hand, stumbling over my other limp arm. I ran for the forest and hard as I could, sprinting as if chased by the Dread Wolf himself. Every horror story I had heard of the shemlem came to mind as I ran. They would rape me, kidnap me, they would skin me alive and sell my skin like a pelt. I could imagine their big hands closing over my throat, their grins as the life was squeezed out of me. I gave a panicked sob, tripping and pitching myself into the forest at the peak of the hill.

Gasping for breath and sucking in more blood than air, I hauled myself up into the branches, my shoulder protesting with every pull. I was safe up high even if I only had one blade.

The Templars were loud, clanking across the roots, bent over and searching for me in the bushes. Careful to not make a sound, I crept past them, deeper into the forest and closer to home.

It was then it sunk in. I clapped a hand over my mouth to hold the whimpers in. Arris was probably dead. I had barely escaped with my life. A dislocated shoulder was a pleasantry compare to what they would do to my brother if he survived.

I clutched the trunk of a nearby tree to steady myself. Blackness sunk in from the top of my sight, pain that had been numbed by fear coming up with full force. My shoulder was on fire. The whole right side of my face stung. My brother was, at the very least, being held by shemlen Templars.

I spat out a hunk of blood and sucked in a deep breath. Cyran taught me to always breathe during the hunt and to always breathe deeply. I felt my shoulder roll down and back away from my ears and my heart slow. When I exhaled my hands were still.

Deshanna was the first to see me. She was pacing at the edge of camp, worrying the handle of her staff as she watched the path. She locked eyes with me, a question asked in the space between us.

I shook my head.

Her jaw snapped shut and began to work. “You must tell Keeper Gandriel everything.” She put an arm around me, careful not to jostle my dangling limb, and led me to his aravel. The whole camp watched as we walked by, whispers already shooting across the clearing,

Father didn’t stand when we came in. He looked me over once and sent Deshanna off for supplies. He watched as I wiped the blood from my chin, his hands clasped in his lap.

“What happened?” he asked.

“We went to get a new runestone for the wards.” I looked up from my hands. He was staring down at me, the emotion in his eyes indiscernible but fierce. Worry, I realized. Concern. That was what blazed in those dark eyes. I’d never seen it before.

Deshanna came in and sat by my side. Father stood and braced himself against my other arm.

“What then?” he asked as Deshanna lined my arm back up with its socket.

“There were Templars. They were looking for something. They found a woman selling books and runes. One of them - ah - noticed Arris’s staff.” I winced as my sister shoved my arm back in place. A jolt of pain shot down my side when it clicked into place. “He told me to run.”

The moment his support wasn’t needed, father retreated back to his side of the aravel, like he couldn’t bear to touch me.

“So you left him?”

The rag Deshanna used to clean my face hesitated. She glanced between father and I, but said nothing. The look in his eye had changed.

His concern had left me shaken, but in his anger my resolve found its footing. I knew his anger well enough to no longer fear it.

“There were a dozen Templars. I couldn’t have fought them all off.”

“If you had tried, your brother might have made it back.”

Deshanna shook her head as she wrung out the bloody rag, more of a warning to me than anything else. But I wouldn’t back down from this.

“I didn’t want to leave him there! I’m going back to get him.” I pushed up from the floor and shoved past Deshanna.

“Ellana, please,” she whispered as I passed, but father spoke over her.

“You are not go back to that shemlen city. I forbid it!” He grabbed my arm and pulled me back, snarling down at me in front of the clan. “You have done enough to hurt this family. I won’t have you leading those shems right to us!”

“Then I won’t come back!”

His nails dug into my arm and his mouth twisted into a sharp sneer. Every insult and taunt and threat hung in the air between us, everything either one of us had wanted to say was there, poised on the back of our throats. I was a disappointment, he was abusive. He was obsessed with control and I was reckless. Then, with blood drying on my face and his nails sharp enough to break skin, snarling at him in front of everyone, I felt free. I wrenched my arm free and shoved him away. Deshanna gasped as he staggered back and ducked to help him up.

She was more his daughter than she ever was my sister.

“You leave now and you’re never coming back!” Spittle clung to corners of his mouth like it always did when he yelled. He looked mad half-kneeling in the grass, his daughter hoisting up by the shoulders.

I could feel the clan watching me, waiting for some last, stinging retort before I marched away, but there was nothing to say. Deshanna, Gandriel and I all knew where we stood. I simply turned and walked away.

I had nothing to my name, no weapons, no home, no money. But I was going to find the bastards who took my brother and I was going to make them pay.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I know this is slow and unfamiliar to start, but please stick with me. I'm very excited for the next few chapters and to get Cullen into the story. I believe I have slightly messed with the timeline of the games to make sure everyone crosses paths at some point, but nothing too drastic. Again, thank you so much for your time. See you next chapter.


End file.
